Rb-sr ages of chondrules and carbonaceous chondrites

Rubidium-strontium and potassium-strontium isotope composition of carbonaceous chondrites and chondrules - age of carbonaceous meteorite

The Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project - institutional cooperation in educational design and delivery

The emergence of blended learning techniques that embrace a combination of face-to-face and online learning environments offers a raft of opportunity for flexibility in education. While much writing has focused on the opportunities for flexibility for the students and teachers, this paper focuses on the opportunities for effective sharing of expertise and effort between institutions. The Engineering 'Hubs and Spokes' project is a collaboration between The Australian National University and the University of South Australia. It draws on the strengths of each to improve the range and quality of educational opportunities for students. Two components of the project are underpinned by blended teaching and learning techniques: sharing of courses at the advanced undergraduate level; and development of an integrated graduate development program. We describe choices made, benefits identified, and the challenges encountered in the early stages of the project. We discuss recommendations for the future of cooperation in educational design and delivery, and comment on the opportunities that arise for structural reform of the higher education sector

Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis: an update

Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is the most common secondary cause of osteoporosis and the resulting fractures cause significant morbidity. Following initiation of oral glucocorticoids, rapid bone loss occurs and fracture risk increases within a few months in a dose-dependent manner. These adverse effects are due to inhibition of bone formation accompanied by an early but transient increase in bone resorption. Multiple mechanisms underlie these changes in bone remodeling; direct effects include up-regulation of PPARγR2, increased expression of sclerostin and increased RANKL/OPG ratio, whilst hypogonadism, altered renal and intestinal calcium handling, and reduced production of insulin-like growth factor 1 also contribute. Fracture risk assessment should be performed as soon as possible after glucocorticoids are initiated and bone protective therapy started promptly in individuals at high-risk, with calcium and vitamin D supplements where appropriate. Oral bisphosphonates are currently regarded as first line options on the grounds of their low cost. However, teriparatide has been shown to be superior in its effects on BMD and vertebral fracture risk in glucocorticoid-treated individuals with osteoporosis and should be considered as an alternative first line option in high-risk patients

Age-Related Changes in Bone Remodelling and Structure in Men: Histomorphometric Studies

Histomorphometric studies of the age-related changes in bone remodelling and structure in men are relatively sparse and mainly limited to the iliac crest. The available data indicate that loss of trabecular bone is predominantly due to decreased formation at the level of individual bone remodelling units and that an increase in remodelling rate does not play a major role. The main structural consequence of the changes in bone remodelling is trabecular thinning. In cortical bone, an age-related reduction in cortical width and increase in porosity have been demonstrated at several skeletal sites. However, the alterations in bone remodelling responsible for these changes remain to be established

Climate policy strength compared: China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, and Japan

The few systematic international comparisons of climate policy strength made so far have serious weaknesses, particularly those that assign arbitrary weightings to different policy instrument types in order to calculate an aggregate score for policy strength. This article avoids these problems by ranking the six biggest emitters by far – China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, and Japan – on a set of six key policy instruments that are individually potent and together representative of climate policy as a whole: carbon taxes, emissions trading, feed-in tariffs, renewable energy quotas, fossil fuel power plant bans, and vehicle emissions standards. The results cast strong doubt on any idea that there is a clear hierarchy on climate policy with Europe at the top: the EU does lead on a number of policies but so does Japan. China, the US, and India each lead on one area. Russia is inactive on all fronts. At the same time climate policy everywhere remains weak compared to what it could be. Policy relevance This study enables climate policy strength, defined as the extent to which the statutory provisions of climate policies are likely to restrict GHG emissions if implemented as intended, to be assessed and compared more realistically across space and time. As such its availability for the six biggest emitters, which together account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions, should facilitate international negotiations (1) by giving participants a better idea of where major emitters stand relative to each other as far as climate policy stringency is concerned, and (2) by identifying areas of weakness that need action

No evidence of a significant role for CTLA-4 in multiple sclerosis

Variation in the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) gene plays a significant role in determining susceptibility to autoimmune thyroid disease and type 1 diabetes. Its role in multiple sclerosis is more controversial. In order to explore this logical candidate more thoroughly, we genotyped 771 multiple sclerosis trio families from the United Kingdom for the 3? untranslated region variable number tandem repeat, the CT60 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and five haplotype-tagging SNPs. No individual marker or common haplotype showed evidence of association with disease. These data suggest that any effect of CTLA-4 on multiple sclerosis susceptibility is likely to be very small

The Influence of Strain Rate on the Mode III Interlaminar Fracture of Composite Materials

The Mode III interlaminar fracture toughness, GIIIc, of composite materials based on both thermoplastic and thermosetting-matrices have been investigated using the edge crack torsion (ECT) test geometry. Tests were undertaken at room temperature and ove

Multi-signal quality monitoring of aluminium resistance spot welding using principal component analysis

The current migration to lighter materials in car bodies, such as aluminium, has resulted in significant challenges for joining in production. Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) is the primary sheet metal joining technique in the automotive industry due to its quick cycle time, low cost and high strength. However, aluminium RSW suffers from problems with quality consistency compared to steel, requiring more frequent interventions. This results in a higher cost in production through increased cycle times and the use of consumable electrodes. To address this issue, a new multi-signal quality monitoring technique is proposed to allow for complete real-time quality monitoring of aluminium spot welds in production. The proposed solution utilises multiple signals during welding and an efficient algorithm using Principal Component Analysis to determine the signal shapes of interest. It was found that an RMSE of 119N could be achieved when predicting the strength of aluminium spot welds using multiple signals, which is approximately ±5% of the mean strength of the welds and an improvement on previous attempts.This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship

Access to fracture risk assessment by FRAX and linked National Osteoporosis Guideline Group (NOGG) guidance in the UK—an analysis of anonymous website activity

Purpose/Introduction In the UK, guidance on assessment of osteoporosis and fracture risk is provided by the National Osteoporosis Guideline Group (www.shef.ac.uk/NOGG). We wished to determine access to this guidance by exploring website activity. Methods We undertook an analysis of FRAX and NOGG website usage for the year between 1st July 2013 and 30th June 2014 using GoogleAnalytics software. Results During this period, there was a total of 1,774,812 sessions (a user interaction with the website) on the FRAX website with 348,964 of these from UK-based users; 253,530 sessions were recorded on the NOGG website. Of the latter, two-thirds were returning visitors, with the vast majority (208,766, 82%) arising from sites within the UK. The remainder of sessions were from other countries demonstrating that some users of FRAX in other countries make use of the NOGG guidance. Of the UK-sourced sessions, the majority were from England, but the session rate (adjusted for population) was highest for Scotland. Almost all (95.7%) of the UK sessions arose from calculations being passed through from the FRAX tool (www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX) to the NOGG website, comprising FRAX calculations in patients without a BMD measurement (74.5%) or FRAX calculations with a BMD result (21.2%). National Health Service (NHS) sites were identified as the major source of visits to the NOGG website, comprising 79.9% of the identifiable visiting locations, but this is an underestimate as many sites from within the NHS are not classified as such. Conclusion The study shows that the facilitated interaction between web based fracture risk assessment and clinical guidelines is widely used in the UK. The approach could usefully be adopted in other countries for which a FRAX model is available